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Featuring an interview with Stephen Bayley, design editor of The Observer, about his guided cycle ride around the houses and homes of celebrated London artists and architects which kicks of a fantastic programme of bicycle tours as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Stephanie Laslett of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios explains why architects love bikes. Plus the latest from Simon Mottram of Rapha, the London-based cycle clothing company and a short report about the Summer Solstice night ride to Stonehenge. To win the 2008 Etape du Tour reconnaissance DVD courtesy of CycleFilm, email the correct answer to bikeshow (at) gmail (.)com.

Play on link below, other file formats available over here (Ogg Vorbis etc)

A Christmas books special with guests George Theohari (author of the newly published Cyclist’s Companion), Guy Andrews (editor of Rouleur) and Graeme Fife (among the UK’s leading cycle writer whose memoirs were published this year). Includes readings from Tim Krabbé’s The Rider, Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men On The Bummel, Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman and Graeme Fife’s play Jam. Plus we give away a copy of the latest edition of Graeme Fife’s Tour De France: the history, the legend, the riders and a copy of the beautiful Rouleur Annual 2007. Competitions are now closed, with the winners Derek in Peterborough (Merckx won the world champs four times: three as a pro and once as an amateur) and Nouman in East London (Bertrand Russell collided with George Bernard Shaw). Well done to both.

Everyone is guessing wrong for the Rouleur Annual quiz question, so there’s a clue after the jump. Continue reading →

The Bike Show returns to Essex and Martin Newell, writer, poet, musician and horticultural assassin, for another helping of Spoke N Word. This year’s programme features a new route from Wivenhoe to Bentley Green, reported to be the largest village green in England. We cross fields, pass through woodland and finish on a series of quiet country lanes. Rain threatens but Martin is equipped with a waterproof poetry kit.

In the studio is Andy Cox, with the latest developments on the UK premier of the Symphony for Singing Bicycles, set for Saturday 7 July. Got a dynamo? Want to take part? We need up to 24 riders, so please get in touch via bikeshow(at)gmail(dot)com.

This week the Bike Show is in the presence of time trial greatness and (almost) sporting immortality. Michael Hutchinson has just written a book about his recent attempt to enter the pantheon of cycling legend by breaking the record for how far you can ride in an hour. The Hour: Sporting Immortality the Hard Way is both an informative history of the hour record itself and an entertaining, amusing and, at times, heartrending account of another chapter in the annals of epic British sporting failure.

This week’s show features an interview with David Herlihy, author of ‘Bicycle‘ the recently published definitive history of the bicycle (Yale University Press). Kieron Yates reports on the London-Edinburgh-London audax/endurance ride.